16 February 2013

The Delhi Durbar Stomacher and Scroll Cambridge Emerald Brooch

Queen Mary loved a good stomacher, and the parure she created for the Delhi Durbar in 1911 wouldn't have been complete without one. There are seven of the gold-set cabochon Cambridge emeralds here and plenty of diamonds - including some of the chips from the famous Cullinan diamond. Two Cullinan brooches are used in the stomacher (and, obviously, can still be used on their own as well): the Cullinan V heart brooch, in the center of the top portion, and the Cullinan VIII emerald cut brooch. The Cullinan VIII is normally used with Cullinan VI suspended as a pendant, but in the Delhi Durbar stomacher it takes on the end emerald pendant instead.

Queen Mary with the stomacher

True to her pile-it-on tendencies, Mary sometimes wore other brooches as extensions of the stomacher. In her Delhi Durbar portrait (above, left), she pinned the Delhi Carved Emerald Brooch as a top piece; she also used a second Cambridge emerald brooch (the next topic in our series) as an addition to the bottom from time to time. Neither were integral to the design of the stomacher.

With the Scroll Cambridge Emerald Brooch alone (in the center of her bodice)

In addition to the Cullinan brooches stuck in the stomacher, the piece includes a removable emerald brooch. The Scroll Cambridge Emerald Brooch (as I like to call it) is created by combining the central cushion-shaped emerald in its scrolled diamond setting with the bottom emerald pendant.

Along with the rest of the emeralds, the stomacher and brooches passed to the Queen in 1953. She doesn't use stomachers much, but she uses the Scroll brooch occasionally (and, of course, the separate Cullinan brooches). The Scroll brooch has been used for day occasions but it's also used in the evening, to pin ribands in place when using the other emeralds in the collection (both those in the same parure, and those in others - on the right above, the Queen uses other emerald jewels including pieces from the Emerald Tassel Parure).